


a thousand loves

by nigiyakapepper



Category: Cardfight!! Vanguard
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen, Hanahaki Disease, POV Third Person Omniscient, Tags May Change
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-14
Updated: 2017-07-07
Packaged: 2018-10-18 19:12:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10623324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nigiyakapepper/pseuds/nigiyakapepper
Summary: It’s a disease of the heart and the mind, the doctor had said.Despite afflicting humanity since time immemorial, very little was understood about the disease—Hanahaki, as it’s called in Japan (and other names elsewhere). The signs of the disease were universal: difficulty breathing, violent coughing fits, sore throat, and the characteristic expulsion of flowers and/or leaves.At age 12, Sendou Aichi contracted Hanahaki Disease.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is a re-telling of Seasons 1 to 4 if Aichi had Hanahaki. The POV is 3rd Person Omniscient but I'll try to keep it on Aichi's unless otherwise is more appropriate. May contain spoilers for what's happening in G Next (ep 26+)

“Kamui-san, does Aichi-san do sports?”

Kamui hadn’t meant to bark out a laugh, which earned him curious stares from the patrons of Card Capital 2.

Chrono raised an eyebrow. “What was that for?”

Kamui shook his head. “Sorry, sorry…can you imagine Aichi-onii-san doing sports?”

Chrono shrugged, idly rearranging the display of new booster packs they had by the cashier. “I wouldn’t know. Aichi-san looks strong. Like, like,” Chrono thought of his friends. “Like how Shion does fencing aside from Vanguard.”

“What makes you say so?” Kamui asked.

“Well, I saw the other day while I was fighting him. Aichi-san’s got scars all over him. Small ones on his arms. A giant one on his neck,” Chrono moved two fingers from the pulse point under his jaw to the juncture where his neck met shoulder. “Unless it was from an injury.” He paused for a moment to think of what could produce such a pattern and didn’t come up with any.

Kamui smiled, warm and contemplative, as he remembered something from the past. “The thing is,” he began, with a tone Chrono now knew meant it would do him good to listen. “Aichi-onii-san had Hanahaki Disease.”

Chrono stared at him. “You’re joking.”

”Nope.”

”Then…then Aichi-san survived it? He’s dating someone?” Chrono asked, disbelief rising like the latter was a more pressing question.

Kamui laughed sheepishly. “You can probably tell who he’s dating…or not,” he amended, remembering how Chrono only met Aichi a few days ago, and also genuinely believed _he and Nagisa had a thing_ , what the heck.

”Wait,” Chrono was saying. “Does hanahaki leave scars? Isn’t it just the coughing? Because flowers are growing in your lungs?”

”You know what causes hanahaki, right?”

Chrono made a sound somewhere between ‘maybe’ and thought. “Unrequited love.”

Kamui nodded. “Usually it’s that. Strong feelings make the flowers grow. And if that feeling continues…?” his tone was expectant.

”You suffocate.” Chrono answered and Kamui nodded again.

…then spoke after a solemn pause. ”There’s also a chance that you get overwhelmed by your feelings faster than it takes you to suffocate.”

Chrono made a face at the morbid mental image, but he waited for his mentor to continue. Kamui’s expression was serious.

”The flowers push out of your skin and damage blood vessels instead of get coughed up. That’s the worst case scenario. …actually, it’s practically unheard of.”

Chrono didn’t realize his mouth had fallen open in surprise. “Then…then Aichi-san had a…?” he gestured to his neck. “He almost _died_? Why didn’t he confess? Shouldn’t you confess when you have hanahaki?” It was difficult for him to imagine that Sendou Aichi—sociable, kind, confident, and strong—had trouble with expressing his feelings enough to kill him.

Kamui smiled, turning towards the entrance of Card Capital 2, which opened with a merry ding. Kai, Ibuki, and Aichi walked through, much to the pleasant surprise of some of the patrons, stunned star struck into petrification.

”It’s quite the story,” he said. “Why don’t you hear it from the man himself?”

**TBC**


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a re-telling of Seasons 1 to 4 if Aichi had Hanahaki. The POV is 3rd Person Omniscient but I'll try to keep it on Aichi's unless otherwise is more appropriate. There's a lot of versions of how Hanahaki is as a disease, but the general idea is the same. I've taken a few liberties with minor details O/

It’s a disease of the heart and the mind, the doctor had said.

Despite afflicting humanity since time immemorial, very little was understood about the disease— _Hanahaki_ , as it’s called in Japan (and other names elsewhere). The signs of the disease were universal: difficulty breathing, violent coughing fits, sore throat, and the characteristic expulsion of flowers and/or leaves.

The most commonly thought cause was said to be unrequited love, although recent research suggests that strong feelings of longing, of needing reciprocity for such feelings, could trigger the growth of flowers in the lungs just the same. If these feelings weighed down the sufferer’s heart and mind, if they felt anguish at being unable to be loved by the ones they longed for the most, the flowers grew. Eventually, the sufferer’s airways would be blocked by flora, resulting in death by asphyxiation.

Death by hanahaki was, interestingly enough, uncommon, as sufferers usually chose to express their emotions to the object of their affections before anything fatal occurred. Once closure was received, the flowers naturally wilted away. Otherwise, surgery to remove the plants’ roots from one’s lungs was the current popular cure. The major, thus controversial, side-effect of this method was that the sufferer became indifferent to whom they once longed for. And in contrast to naturally letting the flowers die, surgery seemed to prevent the sufferer from feeling any sort of emotion toward who they used to long for, or anyone else.

Once you had hanahaki, you would never have it again.

But as it is said, hanahaki was a disease of the heart and the mind. Being overcome by feelings to the point of fatality was a process that could take mere months, but also stretch several years, depending on the sufferer’s will. The closure sufferers needed for their flowers to wilt wasn’t always in their favor. Being rejected could result in the disease naturally dying out, but could also as easily speed up flower growth, and overwhelm a victim until surgery was the only option left. Strong-willed sufferers could make their own disease go away by rationalizing what they felt, by themselves or with the help of a therapist. Others still could be completely unaware of having contracted hanahaki until they coughed up petals, and have no idea why or from whom they needed closure until it was given (or not, in which case, they had to find ways to get their flowers removed).

Truthfully, it was phenomenon enough when a person contracted hanahaki at all, as the average intensity of emotions never went high enough to trigger the disease, or long enough to manifest the more serious symptoms.

It wasn’t a secret that Sendou Aichi was bullied throughout elementary school. He was small, he was shy, he was quiet, he looked like a girl. Whenever someone punched him, he took it. He didn’t want to cause trouble for others. He was scared of speaking up and preferred not to stand out. He was glad Emi was in the all-girls division, shared no features with him save blue eyes, and inherited their father’s conviction. It took all of him just to get through a day, if he had the energy to go to school in the first place. Seeing his mother distraught by it only weighed down his already low self-esteem.

After summer of fifth grade, however, things seemed to have changed. Aichi managed to wrench himself out of the line of a bully’s fist. He no longer gave the impression of a target, but neither was he given much notice, which suited him just fine. No one was surprised when, in sixth grade, he collapsed during practice for Sports Day, gasping for breath. A weak constitution that came with a weak disposition, they said—until the school nurse helped him hack up a mostly intact cluster of pink hydrangeas.

Everyone at the clinic stared, dumbfounded, including the homeroom teacher, the PE teacher, and the student-in-charge, before the nurse thought to call the vice principal who, in turn, called Aichi’s mother.

In sixth grade, at age 12, Sendou Aichi contracted Hanahaki Disease.

The news spread throughout Miyaji Elementary like wildfire. The spotlight, which Aichi had endeavored to stay away from, swung towards him once more as he was hounded, with the cruel curiosity of children, when he returned to school after a couple of days (having had the nearest hospital help him cough up most of the blooms to help him breathe).

”Woah! Hanahaki, huh, Sendou? Who ya crushin’ on?”

”You better tell them or you might end up dying!”

And still more that weren’t directed at him.

”Did you hear the one from 6-B? He’s got hanahaki!”

” The quiet one? Sen—what’shisname? He’s got someone he likes?”

”Do you think he’s going to confess?”

”Yikes, who would want to be confessed to by him?”

”C’mon, that’s mean. He’s gotta or else he’ll die, won’t he?” 

”Too bad for him, then, if he doesn’t do anything about it.”

…and on it went. Aichi, for his part, was wholly confused on top of having to deal with unwanted attention and the sudden awareness of something foreign in his lungs. His body was heavy and ache-y; his breath smelled like the park in June, on rainy days when _actual_ hydrangeas were blooming.

That park. Aichi had met a boy at that park. A boy who had little tact and pointed out how beaten up he was as if he didn’t already know it. A boy who had given him a card—a card that became his anchor—a Vanguard unit by the name of Blaster Blade, a knight of the light with a heart of justice and inexhaustible courage. After that fateful meeting, Aichi began smiling a little brighter, standing a little straighter, wanting to emulate what Blaster Blade stood for. What would Blaster Blade do? Not get beaten up for starters, justice can come later. Aichi was taking things step by step and that was enough.

Wherever the mystery boy was, Aichi wanted to him to know he was doing well. He wanted the boy to know he had given Aichi courage. He wanted him to know that he built a Vanguard deck, but was too shy to ask anyone to play. He wanted to meet the boy again, and play Vanguard with him.

(After that thought, Aichi coughed up a petal or five.)

(His mother, convinced everything was a gross convergence of circumstances, had her son transfer schools for junior high.)

So Sendou Aichi lived with hanahaki for the next two years. It neither grew nor receded, much to the wary relief of his doctors. He had caused a stir when he first arrived at Hitsue Junior High, with more than a few people calling him ‘Sendou Ajisai’ for several weeks. The petals he coughed up on occasion turned from pink to blue. It was beyond Aichi to figure out what that meant. And at the beginning of his third year, they were a mix of blues and purples.

The afternoon Morikawa Katsumi and Izaki Yuta stole Blaster Blade from him, Aichi had a particularly bad attack. Coupled with the scuffle he had for his card, the rowdy pair all but left him on all fours, painfully coughing up clusters of hydrangeas larger than his palms. His lungs felt tangled in brambles and it hurt to breathe. All he could smell were crushed flowers, but he _had_ to get Blaster Blade back no matter what. So Sendou Aichi stood.

Somewhere in between Kai Toshiki saying, “A Vanguard card can only be won back in a Vanguard fight,” and opening his eyes after imagining Planet Cray for the first time did Aichi realize he was breathing.

 _Breathing_ so large and full and deep it made him lightheaded—

”I’ve been wanting to meet you again, Kai Toshiki.”

”So it’s really you, Sendou Aichi.”

—Breathing so much Aichi was sure it was a delusion. And true enough, when Kai told him he wasn’t as noble as Aichi had imagined, and only fought strong fighters to take their cards, Aichi felt his throat close up and the all too familiar scent of flowers fill his nose.

He couldn’t have been breathing, Aichi thought ruefully, blinking past the tears that welled in the corners of his eyes from the pain of having fauna stuck in his throat. It was only his body bracing itself for a bad round of coughing fits, surely. He was hacking and gasping—Kai and Miwa long gone—on the floor of Card Capital, trying to apologize for spilling blue petals on the floor, _my patient card is in my school planner, please call my mom, I’m going to be fine_ , while Morikawa and Izaki held him steady, and Misaki fetched him water.

”You have hanahaki?” Miwa asked one afternoon, several days later.

They’ve become friends. Miwa often came to Card Capital without Kai just to hang out with Aichi, Morikawa, and Izaki. He found the latter pair an absolute riot and enjoyed the antics they got into (at times getting caught up in them himself and thus yelled at by Misaki). They’ve met Kamui, who, after falling helplessly in love with Aichi’s sister, warmed up to the rest of the group pretty quick.

Aichi looked up from building a deck. “Hm? Oh. Yes, I do.”

Miwa hummed thoughtfully. “Since when?”

”Uh, sixth grade?”

”You never thought to confess?”

Aichi looked at him, confused. “Confess what?”

Miwa sputtered a bit. “Your feelings! Your love to the person you like! Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do before your flowers kill you?” A beat. A tone more serious than Aichi had ever heard him use. “Aren’t you scared?”

Aichi smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “Miwa-kun. To tell you the truth…I don’t know why I have hanahaki—“

Miwa’s eyes bugged out. “You’re _kidding_.”

”—I’m not! It was during PE class in sixth grade. We were practicing the relay for Sports Day and suddenly I couldn’t breathe. The next thing I knew I was coughing up hydrangeas. Then I think I passed out.”

”Jeez.” He paused. “You don’t know who you’re in love with?”

Aichi shrugged. “I …honestly don’t think I feel that way toward anyone.”

Miwa just stared at him. “You…bro…Aichi…”

Aichi laughed. “Thank you for your concern, Miwa-kun, but I think it’s okay.” His hands busied themselves with shuffling his deck. “The doctors said it hasn’t grown in two years.”

”It hasn’t gone away either,” Miwa said. “I mean, shouldn’t that happen when you’re fine?”

”…I’m used to it.”

”Aichi,” Miwa said again. “…okay, I can’t vouch for my wingman skills because I’ve never actually set anyone up for a date before but. _Please_ ,” he met Aichi’s eyes in all sincerity. “the minute you feel your heart go dokidoki for someone, tell me… _immediately_ —” by then Aichi was laughing at how impassioned he was. “I will sit them down and tell them about how good of a person you are. You _can’t_ die, like, you are by far the most agreeable one in our circle of friends…”

Misaki glared at them from her spot behind the counter, outwardly looking like she had been reading but no doubt having heard their entire conversation over the din of activity within the shop.

”A-and nee-chan, of course!” Miwa hastily amended, less loud. Whether or not Misaki was mollified by them turning their volume down or being called agreeable, they weren’t sure, but she returned to her book.

Aichi’s laugh tapered into its characteristic sheepishness. “I’ll be careful, really.”

Miwa had wanted to hold him to it, if it wasn’t for the next day, when he, Aichi, and Kamui decided to tail Kai for laughs (and genuine morbid curiosity). He stared at Aichi in surprise when the boy apologized to Kai for tailing him and told him flat out that their shenanigans were because he wanted to know more about him. Not even Miwa had the gall to call Kai out on how much he had changed since he returned, no matter how much Miwa told himself his best friend was still the Kai he knew. Something had happened during Kai’s junior high that Miwa wasn’t privy to, and Miwa had been largely unbothered not knowing what that was, until he saw Aichi’s persistence…

…and Kai losing his cool, which was even stranger for someone who valued self-discipline and control.

”If I want to tell you something, I’ll do it myself.”

Stranger still was that moment, of Aichi rising to the challenge without so much as a second thought. “If I beat you, will you tell me?”

A surprised pause from which Kai recovered quickly. “As you are, you probably can’t beat me.”

Miwa hadn’t meant to watch, but he did all the same. He saw the thin sheen of sweat on Aichi’s skin that wasn’t borne from walking around town a few blocks. The boy’s throat worked and his hand had involuntarily balled into a fist. His chest was heaving slightly. Aichi was having trouble breathing.

Realization didn’t so much as crash on Miwa as it tapped at his shoulder and patiently waited to be acknowledged.

”Kai…” Miwa began, tone admonishing upon seeing Aichi visibly wilt. Kamui, incensed, challenged him to a duel, and thus passed another afternoon.

Aichi coughed up petals when he entered his first shop tournament at Card Capital and had to cardfight his way into the last open spot after seeing Kai turn in a registration form. Miwa didn’t want to keep score but now that he’d noticed, he was. Worse was, he wasn’t sure what to do about what he was seeing, or if this was the way these two and two were meant to be put together.

The day passed pleasantly enough. Kai won all his fights and seemed to be content to watch other people’s matches from the seats. Miwa’s mood was buoyed at seeing Misaki and Aichi gain their sea legs and steadily rise through the ranks as well.

”Didja see nee-chan? She’s doing pretty well for her first shop tourney!”

”Only because the competition isn’t worth anything,” Kai said bluntly, but his gaze is focused on what Miwa was realizing to be what (or who) Kai can’t help but be drawn to.

”Well then, what do you think of Aichi?”

Silence was his answer, but it’s an answer enough.

After Shin announced that Kai, Aichi, Misaki, and Kamui would be sent as a team to the Kanto Regionals, Miwa helped them with closing up the shop. He was wiping down counters and tabletops was then he noticed Misaki had a list of emergency numbers by the shop’s telephone beside the cashier, which was standard save for the added scribble of Aichi’s doctor’s number, alongside an unopened bottle of water and a confused assortment of painkillers and throat lozenges in a small tray.

”Nee-chan, do you usually keep medicine behind the counter?” he asked, unsure of how to broach the subject. Misaki had been busy sweeping the floors, the two of them working in comfortable silence as Shin accomplished accounting in another room.

She didn’t look up, occupied with sweeping the day’s dust from under the chairs and tables. “Whatever happened to you sitting them down and telling them how good of a person Aichi is?”

Miwa huffed a laugh through his nose. “It’s more difficult than it looks.” When he looked up, Misaki was looking at him with a small smile on her face.

The Kanto Regionals came. Between Miwa’s observations and the sharpness of Misaki’s memory, they tried to piece together the moments when Aichi’s hanahaki attacked, which thankfully didn’t occur as often as they’d thought, if at all throughout a day. Either they underestimated how used to Aichi was with his illness, misunderstood what was causing it, or the boy genuinely enjoyed himself enough to overlook the constant discomfort.

It wasn’t only for the sake of their friend’s health that a watchful eye was kept. Aichi flourished with Vanguard. His love for the sport was so genuine that he swept up everyone else around him. People saw Aichi readily step out of his comfort zone when Vanguard was involved, even if the boy himself wasn’t aware of what he was doing. People saw him try with earnest, fail with grace, make mistakes, and rise to overcome them. People saw how something he was well and truly passionate about give him strength and potential.

It was incredible to witness.

Misaki was the self-appointed water person to Aichi occasionally breaking out in sweat because of pain. Aichi had repeatedly cycled through ‘You don’t have to!’, ‘I’m sorry for the inconvenience’, and ‘Thank you’ when she wordlessly helped him after fights. Some part of Aichi knew he should be worried—why he was finding it hard to breathe more often, why flowers were constantly at the back of his throat, needing to be coughed out.

The larger part of Aichi was more preoccupied with everything else—getting over his nerves, winning his matches, not dragging down the team, buoying himself with the thought of getting stronger to be able to fight with Kai, wondering if Kai was even looking his way. (His throat worked, trying to push down the steady burgeoning of stems and leaves and flowers at this.) Aichi’s match with Gouki, and a strange sensation, not unlike someone ringing a gong in Aichi’s head, bagged them their first major win as Team Q4.

Then there was a curious moment between Regionals and Nationals that made Aichi think about his illness in a way he never did for the past couple of years.

First of all, he’d never met another person who had hanahaki before.

In retrospect, Aichi normally shouldn’t have been able to recognize it. Suzugamori Ren seemed anything but physically debilitated by feelings. He wasn’t hacking up a lung or breathing funny. He had an air about him that was a mix of confident, charismatic, and intimidating. He spoke insouciantly, if off-kilter, but was serious when he meant to be.

In fact, when they met him, Aichi hadn’t been thinking about hanahaki at all. Ren was engaged in a fight against Kourin, and he, Kamui, and Misaki were spectators. The way Ren fought was efficient and brutal, as if he saw the most devastating way to bring an opponent to their knees and followed through. He probably _could_ see it, Aichi had no idea, as all his focus was on the fight, and staving off a dull headache accompanied by—that _feeling_. Gonging. A strange resonance that lit something up behind his eyes…

One moment, Aichi was in Card Shop PSY. In the next, he saw Cray before him—a sprawling, rocky landscape, the darker hues of evening bleeding in from the horizon, and the familiar pale outline of a ringed planet and various satellites that can be seen from Cray skies.

He had been abruptly pulled, Aichi realized, into someone else’s imagination by a power beyond the usual, outside of what he knew to control. He bore witness to a terrifying image of Kourin losing her match, and was slammed back into his body with the same lack of ceremony as his abduction.

”Wh…what…?”

”Onii-san, are you alright?”

Kamui was asking, but Aichi couldn’t hear him. His head wasn’t aching, but it was well and truly pounding with sensation, with sound.

Suzugamori Ren shot Aichi a look that can only be described as knowing. Aichi would have been utterly lost as to what Ren knew about him that he himself didn’t, until he felt _heat_ in his chest and behind his eyes and Aichi _knew_ too. He was on the brink of discovering…

”It seems you know something about this power I have,” Ren was saying to the members of Ultra-Rare. All Aichi could register was _it’s power; it’s power that he wields_ …

Suiko smiled at him. “You can say that.”

Ren hummed and prepared to leave. “Then I’ll ask you about it after I win the Nationals.”

By then, the gonging in Aichi’s head had turned into a full-on headache, as if some outside force was trying to simultaneously crush him and hold him together. While Kamui and Misaki fussed over his well-being, Aichi sucked in a painful, brambly breath just as Ren passed them by.

The scent of flowers—crushed, fresh flowers, crammed into struggling airways—came to Aichi. At first, he thought it was nothing out of the ordinary; his senses carried the very same undertone for so long it was impossible to remember how clean air smelled. It was different, though, clearly. But if you asked Aichi how he could tell the difference between the taste of hydrangeas and spider lilies, he wouldn’t have been able to explain it.

But he could tell.

Ren had already left the shop before Aichi could make sense of what happened. The shock shot through his haze of pain and cleared his head a little. Whatever mysterious power that apparently resonated between him and Suzugamori Ren was gone, _and_ the man had…the same illness?

It was odd.

”Aichi, are you alright?” Misaki was saying, water and painkillers in hand. The three of them had made their way out of the shop themselves with more questions than answers they knew would had to wait for another time to be discovered. 

”You aren’t having an attack, are you?” Kamui asked.

Aichi shook his head, distracted by his thoughts. “Can you normally tell when someone has hanahaki?” He turned just in time to see his friends exchange a look.

Kamui shrugged. “Onii-san, you’re the only person we know who has it…”

Aichi frowned slightly, unsure of how to convey what he wanted to say. “I mean, how did you guys come to know I had it?”

”You had an attack the very first time you visited Card Capital,” Misaki said.

Kamui nodded. “It was the coughing. You do it a lot. When we asked, Shin-san said you were sick.”

Aichi hummed in thought. “Any other way? Like daily…I know the coughing is a thing but…”

Misaki seemed to catch on. “Well…” she spoke slowly, choosing her words carefully. “You smell like flowers, if that helps.” An awkward beat, which prompted her to explain herself. “You know how people…um, wear perfume, which smells artificial, or just smell a certain way…” She shrugged her shoulders, not knowing how to elaborate any further.

”Oh yeah, totally,” Kamui said and Aichi nodded.

”You always smell like fresh flowers,” Misaki finished, gaze resolutely elsewhere in slight embarrassment.

”Oh yeah!” Kamui repeated, but with a tone of realization. “Aichi-onii-san smells like flowers! And not like, ‘grandma’s sweater smells flowerial because she works in a flower shop’—“

“Floral,” Misaki interjected.

“—right, floral. But like, of _actual_ actual flowers.”

”Really?” Aichi had never noticed.

”Why?” Misaki asked.

Aichi shook his head. “It’s nothing. I was just curious.”

”Still!” Kamui launched into a lively conversation with Misaki. “That Suzugamori Ren is really strong! Did you see what he did with…”

Aichi tuned them out, mulling the day’s happenings in his head. A few things were clear at least. Suzugamori Ren was a strong cardfighter, whom Aichi had a connection to. What it was and why it existed, he had no idea. Ren …possibly also had hanahaki, although for all Aichi knew, it was completely independent of his abilities. Still, it was interesting to think about…

Ren, powerful and put-together, harbored feelings strong enough to make flowers grow in his lungs. Aichi couldn’t help but wonder who or what the cause was, and if Ren knew. Aichi wondered what would cure his own.

The Preliminaries came, and not without it's difficulties. While Misaki finally reached some closure with her parents’ accident and its effect on how she played, Kamui had officially had it with Kai. The kid had grown terribly fond of the team and felt proud of what they had achieved together. When Aichi, with a cough and a half stuck in his throat, admitted to being the group’s weakness, Kamui saw red at Kai’s apathy and fled, declaring he was no longer able to fight alongside Kai without compromising something fundamental.

No one was particularly surprised. Kai’s prickliness had simply built over time and Kamui’s patience with him had worn way too thin. Koutei, with the wisdom of a saint, told Aichi to “secure a place for him to come back. That’s what I think teams are about,” which worked until they ran into Team AL4.

”Tetsu,” Kai’s usually calm tone now cut through like ice with what sounded like barely restrained anger, or disgust.

”Kai,” Shinjou Tetsu returned coolly. “I didn’t expect to see you here.”

”Where’s Ren?”

”You’d think Ren would come to something as trivial as preliminaries? You should know better.”

”Should I?” the question was so quietly vicious that Aichi and Misaki turned to look. “I’ve forgotten what happened back then.”

Tetsu stared at him for a long moment, expression unreadable, before he said, “At any rate, I’ll be glad to have a rematch with you.” 

_So Kai knew Ren,_ Aichi thought. _But something happened._ His throat crawled with petals as the desire to win and find answers rose within him.

Having taken Koutei’s words to heart, Aichi volunteered to play for Kamui’s sake. Team Q4 held valiantly against their opponents, meeting hot-blooded feelings to win with their own sincerity and determination. The crowd had warmed up to them, either swayed by strength or empathy toward the success of the hardworking. But soon, Team Q4 met the gap that neither sentiment nor hard work could fill fast enough. While Kai shot Kyou’s arrogance down with a swift defeat, Asaka’s level was beyond Misaki’s. And Aichi…

The attack came after he lost. At their team bench, Aichi coughed up cluster after cluster of blue hydrangeas. Shin fretted over whether or not they should call his doctor, but Aichi shook his head. It lasted worryingly longer than usual, but Aichi calmed down eventually, and startled when he looked up to see Kai being the one passing him his water bottle.

Beside them, Misaki was silent, stewing over her own defeats. In the distance, among the audience, Kamui’s anger had gone from him, replaced by regret and shame. Kai, however, to Aichi’s momentary surprise, looked relatively unbothered— _being on a losing team, though—_

Aichi opened his mouth to apologize.

But Ren came to interrupt, and Kai immediately frowned.

”I finally found you, Kai,” he said, in a voice with a smooth, dangerous lilt. "Ever since you disappeared on me, I've been looking for you for a long, long time."

Suzugamori Ren’s presence was overwhelming. His power that resonated with Aichi, the illness they shared, the scent of fresh flowers that was different from his own, visions of _red, red, red._

"I can't believe you ended up on such a weak team," Ren was speaking, and Kai looked impassive. "You can't honestly be satisfied with this level of power. So tell me, why did you join a team like this? You know plenty of players who are much stronger. If you apologized to me, I would've—"

A flash of annoyance. "It doesn't matter what kind of team I'm on," Kai said. Whatever ferocity he had when he spoke to Tetsu earlier had cooled into an assured sort of resignation. "As long as it isn't with you."

"Kai-kun!" Aichi didn't know what would come out of his mouth next, but thankfully it wasn't flowers. Not yet. It was then Ren rounded on him.

"If you had won the match," he said haughtily. "The calculation of your score would have been different, and Kai would've been able to fight against me in the Finals. It's all your fault."

"Hey!" Misaki interjected, but Aichi stopped her.

"Misaki-san, it's as Ren-san said…" He was seized with fear and panic. They lodged themselves in his chest and sped up his heart rate. Several thoughts were warring inside him. Ren was right, he was the reason that they lost. He had let his team down. He had let Kai down. He had promised to become strong, but they had lost. What was Kai going to think of him now? Surely, he was disappointed. Would he leave? _Oh god_ , what if he left…

"In fact," Ren continued, relentless. "You don't belong on this team. Especially not with Kai."

It hurt. It hurt to breathe. He wanted to claw out the pain in his throat. He tasted stems and leaves on his tongue as hydrangeas pushed past his lips. He needed to take in what little air he could…

He didn't register Team AL4 leaving. All he could feel was the ache in his lungs, the stinging in his insides, and a terrible, terrible weight in his chest beyond the physical.

”Aichi-onii-san!” he heard someone yell before he blacked out.

  
  
  


(On their way back to the Foo Fighter Headquarters, Tetsu and Asaka assured Ren of the winning streaks of their various teams. It should be more than enough, Ren thought, to show the world how fearsome and powerful they were, _right Kai?_ Ren coughed. For the first time in a long time. Red spider lilies spilled from his mouth and onto the floor.)

**TBC**


	3. Chapter 3

”This is somehow embarrassing,” Aichi said, laughing sheepishly as he scratched the back of his neck.

It was a slow day for Card Capital 2 despite being a Friday. The setting sun was streaming in through the windows, and their shop regulars have long since left. Many a friendly match passed between Kai, Aichi, Ibuki, and Chrono. The conversation was lively from Kamui bringing up the subject of Chrono’s curiosity. Miwa dropped by after his shift at Card Capital 1 bringing snacks, which everyone dug into

Currently, Ibuki and Chrono were staring at Aichi with near identical expressions—Chrono of blatant disbelief, mouth open and rice from the onigiri he was eating stuck to his cheek, Ibuki of a tamer, wide-eyed incredulity (which looked comical as he was in mid-chew). Only when Kai hid a cough that suspiciously sounded like a snort behind a bemused Miwa’s shoulder did Ibuki swallow and glare at him.

“Then? What happened next?” he asked.

Chrono rounded on him. “Wait, you don’t know this story?” he said, dropping the polite forms he normally used with the other adults, disbelief piling on disbelief.

Ibuki frowned. “No?” he said as if imploring Chrono not to be an idiot.

And it was interesting to realize that Ibuki had met Aichi only a little over a year ago. What he knew of Aichi wasn’t far from Chrono’s own observations. In the memories of his first encounters with Aichi (those that thankfully remained clear despite the Deletors’ meddling), the boy shone bright. He leapt into action without hesitation; he fought for the sake of his friends; he held steadfast to his principles, and bounced back in the face of the impossible. More than his courage, Aichi was known for his infallible kindness. It was difficult to imagine otherwise.

Ibuki turned to Aichi. “So you’re okay now?”

This time, it was Miwa who had to hide his snort when Kai frowned and blurted out, “Of course he is, look at him.”

Ibuki frowned too and was about to retaliate alongside Miwa saying, “Why are _you_ getting defensive?” when the entrance to Card Capital 2 whooshed open merrily and Suzugamori Ren walked through.

”Hello!” he sang, and made a noise of pleasant surprise at the people gathered. “What’s this, what’s this? Are we having a party?”

”Ren-san!” Aichi beamed, followed by Miwa’s “Ossu!”, Kai’s silent two-fingered salute, Ibuki’s mildly surprised, “Branch Manager Suzugamori,” and everyone’s greetings.

”Have some food!” Kamui said. “We’ve got enough to go around.”

Kai was about to ask why Ren arrived when Miwa said, “Awesome timing! Help us out here.” He didn’t miss Miwa pocketing his phone.

”Hmm? With what?” Ren asked, reaching for a chip from the chip pile.

”Chrono-kun is interested in this,” Aichi said, tipping his head to the side to show the scar on his neck, pale, usually unnoticeable but clearly large, spanning from the underside of his jaw to gentle curve of his shoulder.

The air about Ren shifted from characteristically carefree to serious, as it often did during fights (or when something actually had to be taken seriously). He hummed thoughtfully around a potato chip. “So, an old tale, huh?”

Aichi smiled, “Something like that.”

Ren’s tone was back to light. “Yours were hydrangeas, right? They were really beautiful.”

”Ren-san’s too,” Aichi said. “Red spider lilies.”

A beat.

” _What?!_ ” exclaimed more than a few people present, including Kamui and Chrono. Ibuki, and hilariously enough, Kai was staring at him in shock, to which Miwa muttered, “Hey now…”

”That’s mean, you guys!” Ren whined. “I was sick, too!”

”You didn’t know?” Miwa asked his best friend.

”Well I did,” Kai started. “But…”

”Okay,” Kamui declared. “We need more food for this. Shin-san! I’m calling delivery!”

”Eeeh?” Shin protested. “How long are you guys staying?”

He went unanswered, but witnessed incredible teamwork from a dysfunctional set of otherwise strong Vanguard fighters ordering pizza.

**TBC**


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The POVs change, so I hope that won't be confusing for anyone! If there are any errors or typos, feel free to tell me.

A week passed. Emi was upset.

”Mama, it’s like he’s gone back to how he was before,” she said as she looked at her brother’s untouched breakfast, the third in the last couple of days.

”That boy’s probably taking his loss very hard,” their mother said. “Do you know where he might’ve gone?”

”Card Capital?” Emi said after some thought. “I’ll go check!”

”Thank you, dear!”

It was fascinating, to say the least, how Emi saw her brother changed by Vanguard. She had never resented him for being how he was, and only felt a fierce sort of protection over him despite being the younger sibling. She remembered him suffering from Hanahaki Disease more vividly than when he went without it. And now…all this felt surreal.

Despite the coughing, the troubled breathing, and the constant pain in his throat, Aichi had never looked happier. It felt surreal for Emi to see her brother’s eyes light up when playing a match. Surreal for her to hear conviction in his voice and see surety in his movements, the line of his back straight and confident. Surreal for her to see him talk and laugh with ease, to see people surrounding him, drawn to him, and calling him strong. Surreal to see him enter competitions—from shop tournaments to Regionals to Nationals—and win.

She’d felt awed and proud and curious all at once, trying her own hand at Vanguard to see what the magic was. She came to like it well enough but was content to leave the passion and love for the sport to her brother. She’d been content with watching him…

And soon realized that his hanahaki has gotten significantly worse.

He was barely bothered by his illness during his first couple of years in junior high, but now he had attacks at least once every week—ranging from a few coughs that could be relieved with water, to all out hacking up flowers on all fours.

Emi was scared. Aichi didn’t know what or who the root of his feelings was, and seemed disinclined to find out. Emi was sure it related to Vanguard, but she didn’t have the heart to take the sport away from her brother, not when it made him look so alive.

As she suspected, her brother had wandered into Card Capital where their friends gathered to watch the Finals.

”It’s just me!” Miwa said when Aichi looked up at his entry and saw that he was alone. His throat must have constricted in response, because Aichi felt the flowers first before he tasted them. The discomfort must have shown on his face, and was pretty much evident in everyone’s mood if Kamui’s silence was any indication, because Miwa gently patted Aichi’s back in attempt to relieve…something.

”Don’t think too much about it,” he said. “Do you really think Kai’s the type of person who’d watch TV with everyone?”

It worked, if only for a few minutes. Miwa didn’t miss the way Aichi distractedly stopped himself from coughing, entire focus on watching the Finals. Emi was the one who worriedly caught his eye when Aichi caved anyway, accepting water with mumbled thanks as he tried to keep bright blue clusters of hydrangeas from spilling past the hand he cupped over his mouth.

”Make sure he eats a good lunch, yeah?” Miwa told her, and Emi nodded determinedly. Miwa himself had his own pit stop to make.

He wondered how much to tell Kai. _You know how Aichi gets those really bad hanahaki attacks? They’re 87% because of you. I know you’ve got your own way of doing things, but go easy on him, will you?_ Nope. The guy would never care for such reasoning, and Aichi, good as he is, wouldn’t appreciate pity. Besides, neither did Miwa want this issue resolved by force, if it even did. Could the disease tell the sincerity of a closure attempt? He’d have to ask Misaki.

Miwa decided to be honest. Hanahaki or no, Aichi needed to get back on his feet, and the only person who was capable of that was Kai.

”So! The manager’s planning a training camp—“

”I don’t need any sort of—“

”—that you actually can’t say no to,” Miwa waggled his eyebrows at him and Kai shut up, waiting for him to continue. “Team Caesar’s going to be there.”

”Huh,” Kai said sounding unmoved, but his eyes were bright. Miwa took that as a win.

”You saw what happened during the preliminaries. Everyone wants to get stronger. And,” Miwa glanced at Kai to gauge the expression on his face. It’s neutral. “Aichi told me about what that Ren said.” Neutral still. “You don’t actually think the team’s bad…” It was both a question and a statement, one that Miwa hoped he’d get some sort of clarification but would be alright with none just the same.

He got none, so Miwa pushed on. “Even if you lost, you aren’t actually mad.” Neutral. “If you really thought they were weak, you would just…move on.”

Kai sighed through his nose and took a sip of coffee. “They _are_ weak, though.” Miwa was about to give a mental sigh of his own when he continued. “But they learn, and get stronger on their own.” He sipped some more coffee before setting the cup down. “I respect that.”

Miwa fought the urge not to break into a grin. Prickly as his best friend was, it made discovering how he ticked and what he valued all the more rewarding. “ _They_ ,” he said. “need to hear that from you right now.” Or else Aichi will asphyxiate.

That’s when Kai frowned, as if to say _If they can’t pick themselves up, then they might as well be weak after all_ , and moved to get his bill. Miwa snatched it from its little stand with a wink and said, “Humor me in exchange.”

Aichi, for his part of that afternoon, felt pathetic. He and Emi had lunch at home, with his mother making his favorite fish dish accompanied with rice, miso soup, and salad. He was restless, however, and his feet had led him to the park by his neighborhood. He sat on the edge of the modern-looking fountain pool, all angles and lines, and stared at his reflection in the water. He couldn’t think of anything else except all the infinite ways how the preliminaries could have gone differently. He should have made different plays. He should’ve convinced Kamui to stay. He should’ve prayed for Team Foo Fighters to have gotten stomach flu…

He should have been stronger. He shouldn’t have made promises he couldn’t fulfill. He shouldn’t have let Kai down. Aichi felt hydrangeas burgeon in his throat and his heart thump harder, trying to pump more oxygen into his system with that little it had to circulate. After a furtive glance at his surroundings and feeling a little grossed out with himself, he coughed his hardest, wincing in pain at a feeling not unlike pulling needles from skin. Several clusters came away, and he felt a little better. He was about to let the blooms float off in the water when an additional reflection shocked them from his hands.

”Kai-kun?”

”What are you doing?” it was reproach more than question. Aichi fought from shrinking into himself. 

”I’m sorry…I…I wasn’t strong enough.” He could feel another cough coming up, scraping over his raw throat. He could taste blood. “I’m not strong enough to beat them.”

”No. You aren’t,” Kai echoed, inflectionless. Aichi felt hollow, until he heard his next words. “Not yet.”

It took half a minute to sink in. He barely registered the thought of _oh god, he was breathing_ at the same time as relief, gratitude, and overwhelming determination welling inside him.

”Kai-kun!” Aichi whipped around but Kai was already walking away. It didn’t matter. Aichi felt better, incredibly better. Always ( _always_ ) encouraged by Kai’s words. He was breathing full and hard.

It held up all the way to the summer training camp Shin arranged for them. (Team Caesar was nothing if not genuinely good people. Aichi felt more than a little overwhelmed at being able to smell the sea that he might’ve held Emi’s hand so tightly it hurt a little. The camp was exactly what everyone needed to get their spirits back up.) It held all the way to the shop tournament and the Regionals. Something had _clicked_ during training and fights started going Aichi’s way. A voice inside his head, not unlike a conscience, told him which units to use and how, like narrating a game plan that turned out to be 100% accurate.

He was _thrilled._ He was _winning_. He was getting _stronger_. Surely, Kai would acknowledge him now, right?

”Let me go first,” Aichi said during their second go at the Preliminaries. “I’ll be sure to win.”

”Uoo! I want to fight, too!” Kamui said, eager to help out after missing out the last time.

Misaki nodded. “Me, too.”

Which meant Kai was benching. He looked at them, face neutral, and said, “I don’t mind.”

Aichi lit up. Brightness rose in him like flowers and nearly spilled over. Kai was leaving the team to his care! Kai was _noticing_ him! Finally!

He felt like he was floating outside his body, buoyed by a power that made him see so clearly it overrode his other senses—control over his words, the growing discomfort and worry of the people around him, awareness of his own body. Who had time to be exhausted when you needed to win?

The crowd loved them. Undecorated underdog, Team Q4, kicked out of last Prelims, was ruthlessly climbing the ranks. They could even give AL4 a run for their money! Anyone who fought against Sendou Aichi, however, felt uneasy, not by their defeat but by how much their opponent was…not him. They knew Aichi had the potential to become a formidable fighter, but now that he was, it felt wrong. They couldn’t bring themselves to voice it, or figure out what exactly felt off. They only held out hope of something or someone bringing Aichi to his senses.

Only the ones closest to Aichi saw the worst of what was happening, but were as confused as everyone else. Aichi ran himself ragged every fight. Kamui and Misaki helped him from all but collapsing on-stage more times than what felt comfortable.

”Is this hanahaki? It can’t be hanahaki, right?” Kamui said, sitting beside Aichi who was lying down on one of the cushioned benches at a lounge on the event grounds. His eyes were closed in an attempt to stave off waves of dizziness.

Misaki was beside herself, fretfully debating whether or not to call Emi or Aichi’s doctors. She clutched her phone in her hands so tight the screen almost gave way under her thumbs, warping the LED display like a bruise.

”Don’t,” Aichi said weakly, sitting up. “It’s not and I can still fight.” He certainly felt like he could. Every fight he won, that weightlessness, that power in him roiled with even more intensity than before, filling him up to bursting. All he could think of was to expel it fighting.

”No, you can’t.” This time it was Kai. “Don’t fight anymore.” _You’re going to hurt yourself,_ but the lump in Kai’s throat from a rising _something_ kept him from voicing the last part. His plea hung in the air, interpretable as anything.

” _Why?!_ ” Aichi all but shouted. “I want to fight more! I want you to recognize me! _Kai!_ ”

It came. Coughing. Large clusters of hydrangea from bright blues to deep purples spilled from his mouth. Kamui yelped his name in shock and steadied him as Aichi doubled over in pain. Misaki had had enough, pressed his water bottle into his hands, and dialed the landline of the Sendou household.

Between ragged breaths, Aichi spoke. “You know…I can hear the voices of the cards…”

”Onii-san, what…?”

”…I know how to win.”

 _Panic._ That’s what was rising in Kai. It seized him so suddenly he couldn’t hear himself think over the rush of blood in his head—familiar words, memories, flashes of light and red. His body’s first instinct was to flee, but _gods, was he really going to do that again?_ He gripped his own hands to stop them from shaking.

When he spoke, there was a desperation that wasn’t there before, and the smallest resignation from knowing once it began, there was no way of stopping, only a way of dealing with the aftermath. “Don’t forget, Aichi. _You_ are the one who fights.”

Kai stood, and somehow Kamui and Misaki knew, he too wouldn’t be able to keep playing on the team without sacrificing something fundamental. They made no move to stop him, not knowing what move that would be in the first place. Aichi, though, struggled in Kamui’s grip.

”Kai-kun!”

”…I can’t fight you, Aichi.”

Kai left, and Aichi got the worst hanahaki attack he’s had in three years and passed out from lack of oxygen. The Nationals sponsor, Tatsunagi Corporation, conducted emergency measures and gave Aichi a room to rest in while his doctors were contacted and flown in via helicopter. Kamui, Misaki, Emi, and Aichi’s mother worriedly sat by him all evening, and Team Q4 qualified for Semi-Finals.

**TBC**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My wish for Tanabata is to succesfully finish all my fic ideas.


End file.
